The use of flat ribbon multiconductor electrical cables in the electronics industry is widespread. Such cables typically include a plurality of parallel electrical conductors maintained generally in a common plane and electrically isolated from each other by a ribbon-like body of electrical insulation. The external surfaces of such cable may be flat, convoluted or a mixture thereof. In one known shielded type of such cables, the conductors consist of plural signal conductors and one or more shield conductors for each signal conductor. Several electrical connectors have been employed to terminate shielded type of flat ribbon multiple conductor cable. One such connector disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,094,564 includes therein a grounding bus to afford a common ground connection for the ground conductors while the signal conductors are connected to respective contacts of the connector for signal carrying purposes. The grounding bus, which may be connected to one or more contacts for connection to an external circuit ground, eliminates the need to provide an individual contact for each ground conductor.
Also known is flat ribbon insulated coaxial multiconductor cable including multiple signal conductors and respective coaxial shields therefor. Each signal conductor is individually insulated with respect to its coaxial shield to form a coaxial conductor pair and the plural coaxial conductor pairs are maintained in a common plane and electrically isolated from each other by an outer ribbon-like body of electrical insulation. Respecting termination of this type of cable as by connection of the conductors thereof to respective electrical contacts of an electrical connector, the coaxial arrangement of the signal conductors and shields presents problems different from those associated with the termination of cables wherein the shield conductors are disposed between the signal conductors in the plane of the signal conductors. For example, the signal conductors cannot be simply bent out of the plane of the cable for connection to a contact and the coaxial shield continued in the plane of the cable for connection, for example, to a grounding bus. For these and other reasons, connectors for flat ribbon cables wherein the shield conductors are disposed between the signal conductors in the plane thereof are generally unsuitable for terminating flat ribbon insulated coaxial multiconductor cable.